Free Republic

The first US case of the Omicron COVID strain has been confirmed in the state of California, Dr. Anthony Fauci announced during a press briefing on Wednesday. The “variant of concern,” which has already been reported in seventeen countries, has now reached California, the president’s top medical adviser said while flanked by White House press secretary Jen Psaki. Dr. Anthony Fauci said the infected individual, who was fully vaccinated, had just returned from South Africa to the San Francisco area on Nov. 22 and tested positive on Nov. 29.

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has made its way to California. The variant’s presence in the state — reported Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — is not unexpected. First detected in southern Africa last month, the strain has already been found in nearly two dozen countries around the globe. Still, the arrival of the highly mutated variant comes at what was already shaping up to be a particularly precarious time in California. Officials have long expressed concern that the one-two punch of the end-of-year holiday season and colder weather will increasingly push people to...

Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas dismissed the new COVID-19 Omicron strain as Democrats' bid to 'cheat' in the upcoming 2022 midterm elections in a controversial tweet he posted Saturday. 'Here comes the MEV - the Midterm Election Variant! They NEED a reason to push unsolicited nationwide mail-in ballots,' wrote the lawmaker who served as the personal doctor to Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. 'Democrats will do anything to CHEAT during an election - but we're not going to let them!'

President Joe Biden on Monday urged Americans to get vaccinated or get their booster shots amid warnings about the spread of the Omicron variant – but insisted that the infectious new variant was not a cause for 'panic' and said no new restrictions were needed. 'We'll fight this variant with scientific and knowledgeable actions and speed, not chaos and confusion,' Biden said at the White House. But even amid the pressing nature of the new variant, Biden misstated the name of the variant. 'It's called the Omnicron,' he said, inserting an extra 'n' – an error his coronavirus advisor, Dr....

The White House on Sunday called on people to get their booster shots as a matter of urgency, as the new variant Omicron was confirmed to have arrived in North America. Joe Biden returned from his Thanksgiving break to hold an emergency meeting with his COVID advisors on Sunday evening - with Dr Anthony Fauci sounding a hopeful note, saying he believed 'existing vaccines are likely to provide a degree of protection against severe cases' from Omicron. Two cases of Omicron were confirmed in Canada on Sunday - both in patients in the capital, Ottawa, who had traveled to Nigeria....

President Biden will provide an update on his administration's response to the new COVID-19 omicron variant on Monday, according to the White House, after Dr. Anthony Fauci said it will take roughly two weeks to gather more information on the new strain. Biden met with Fauci and members of the White House COVID-19 Response Team on Sunday, two days after the World Health Organization (WHO) held an emergency meeting to discuss the new COVID-19 strain, which it labeled a variant of concern.

Later today Fauci and the #COVID19 response team will brief Biden on the "#Omicron variant" and discuss the "administration’s response."

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that the United States should “be prepared to do anything and everything,” including lockdowns, to fight the new Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus. Anchor George Stephanopoulos asked, “Should we expect to be seeing more lockdowns again, new lockdowns, more mandates?”

Guess what’s actually causing the crisis? Hint: it rhymes with “vaccine schmandate.” Alex Berenson 10 hr ago 574 273 Now this is a lie so brazen even Andrew Cuomo might hesitate to tell it. New York’s new and unimproved governor, Kathy Hochul, last seen telling you to Get Vaxxed For Jesus (I kid you not), has now declared a “state of emergency” that will allow Health Department bureaucrats to block “non-urgent” medical procedures at hospitals. Because who needs a colonoscopy, anyway? Hochul says the Xi - I mean Omicron, definitely not Xi! - variant is behind the emergency.

Covid skeptics across the country are speaking out about many irregularities with the so-called “Omicron Variant.” It came out of nowhere at a very convenient time with Big Pharma apparently already prepared to use it to print more money and force more jabs onto people. It’s being touted as potentially more infectious and virulent than previous variants. All the while, we still have nothing but authoritarian responses to its sudden emergence. U.S. Representative Ronnie Jackson (R-TX) has a better name for it than “Omicron”: “Here comes the MEV – the Midterm Election Variant! They NEED a reason to push unsolicited...

The new COVID-19 omicron variant is posing new risks for the American people as President Biden and his administration attempt to control the spread of a virus he vowed to "shut down" during the 2020 campaign. The omicron variant, according to World Health Organization (WHO) officials, has a large number of mutations, "some of which are concerning."

New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) declared a state of emergency due to the new “Omicron” Covid variant spreading in Africa. The declaration goes into effect on December 3 and gives the Health Department the power to limit “non-essential” procedures (will likely be enforced through the lens of equity) at hospitals. “We continue to see warning signs of spikes this upcoming winter, and while the new Omicron variant has yet to be detected in New York State, it’s coming,” Hochul said. NBC New York reported:

Alarms were today raised after one in ten passengers coming into the Netherlands from South Africa this morning tested positive for Covid and a wave of suspected cases of the new super-mutant variant were spotted in Europe. Around 600 passengers arrived on two planes in Schipol Airport, near Amsterdam, from Johannesburg — the epicentre for the new strain that experts fear is 40 per cent more vaccine evasive than Delta — hours after travel bans were put in place. Some 61 of those on the planes tested positive for the virus on PCR tests after they were stopped at the...

According to Flight Aware, there are nine more flights Saturday from South Africa slated to land at New York's three international airports - Newark, JFK, and LaGuardia. Eight flights are also scheduled to depart South Africa for New York on Sunday before Biden's travel ban goes into effect on Monday.

The new omicron variant of the coronavirus could already be in the United States, Dr. Anthony Fauci says. “I would not be surprised if it is,” the White House’s chief medical adviser told NBC’s Weekend Today.

Joe Biden is being accused of being a hypocrite after he announced a ban on travel from eight southern African countries in response to the new Omicron COVID variant despite labeling Donald Trump as 'xenophobic' when the Republican imposed a ban on travelers last year. On Friday, Biden, who is vacationing in Nantucket for a Thanksgiving break with his family, said travel will be banned from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi.

Delta Air Lines and United Airlines said on Friday they do not plan any changes to their South Africa-US routes after the White House said it plans to impose new travel curbs on southern Africa starting Monday amid concerns about a new COVID-19 variant. Delta and United are the only US passenger carriers that have direct flights to southern Africa. Delta currently operates service between Johannesburg and Atlanta three times weekly and the US airline said “there are no planned adjustments to service at this time.”

President Joe Biden is being slammed for still allowing flights from South Africa to land in the US as his top health expert said he 'wouldn't be surprised' if the new super mutant variant Omicron was already in US following a flight from Johannesburg landing at Newark airport Saturday morning. -snip- 'It has a large number of mutations, particularly in that area of the virus that relates to its ability to bind to the cells in your nasal pharynx and in your lung,' Fauci told the Today Show Saturday morning. 'You have to be careful and assume that that's the...

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Saturday morning that he would not be shocked to learn that the COVID-19 omicron variant is already in the U.S. In an interview on NBC's "Weekend TODAY" show, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director told co-hosts Kristen Welker and Peter Alexander that the strain has a large number of mutations that would suggest it could potentially evade immune protection and that scientists can predict it will be more transmissible. "We don't know that yet, but you have to be careful and assume that that's the case. It also has a bunch of...

The governor of New York on Friday declared a state of emergency as COVID transmission reached rates not seen since April 2020, and warned that the troubling new variant of COVID which first emerged in Botswana is 'coming'. Earlier on Friday, the US banned flights from eight Southern African countries to try and prevent the mutant strain, Omicron, from arriving. Kathy Hochul, the governor, said that all non-urgent procedures could be postponed, beginning December 3, if the hospital's capacity falls dangerously low. -snip- She also issued a 'declaration of disaster emergency', noting that COVID transmission is at a level not...